Serving Love at Caffe Ti-amo

Due to the emergence of different types and styles of serving coffee here in the country, a lot of cafes have popped up ranging from the ever popular group of Starbucks Coffee, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Seattle's Best Coffee, UCC and Mocha Blends to small, more intimate ones like our featured one in this post, Caffe Ti-amo.

To distinguish itself from the hundreds of cafes sprouting around, instead of the usual baked goods like muffins, donuts, and cheesecake partnered with coffee, they opted to go the cool route and paired their coffee with Italian gelato.  With this approach, it opened up a number of possibilities including affogatos and baked items like waffles topped with gelato.  

Caffe Ti-amo caters to the dessert and coffee aficionados of the world, but is their coffee and gelato combo enough to make them stand out from the rest?

The homey ambiance

Gelato, along with its relative, the yogurt, have taken over the country by storm since they both are a healthier alternative to the traditional ice cream that Filipinos have loved over the years.  With the health awareness in high gear all over the world, gelato and yogurt stepped in and served every one who wanted to cater to their sweet tooth every now and then.

Gelato normally contains less fat and sugar compared to ice cream.  Sometimes touted as 99% or even 100% fat-free, gelato has gained quite a following over the years that gelato-only shops have appeared all over the country.  

In this case, Caffe Ti-amo's gelato is advertised as 90% fat-free.

The handful of rich, gelato flavors

We visited the Caffe Ti-amo in the upper ground floor of SM North Edsa Annex.  As we entered the brown and cream colored cafe, the selection of gelato greeted us immediately.  The SM Annex branch had an ample amount of flavors to choose from, twelve to be exact.  It was not as plenty as compared to their other competitors like Gelatissimo, but they still had traditional flavors on board like strawberry and chocolate as well as uncommon ones like green tea and milk cheese.  For the more daring ones, unfortunately, there were no experimental flavors available like chili chocolate and beetroot but you could not knock points off Caffe Ti-amo for treading on the safe side.

Prices are as follows:

Small (one flavor) - Php 49

Regular (two flavors) - Php 89

Medium (three flavors) - Php 129

Large (four flavors) - Php 169

Similar to all other gelato places, you could sample their wares first before buying.  They would gladly give you a pinky-sized scoop of any flavor you wish to taste first in order to help you decide.  The barista proudly mentioned that their strawberry and tiramisu flavors were their gelato best sellers. After sampling some of the more dubious flavors, my love and I finally settled with a blueberry, strawberry and dark chocolate combination.

Php 129 - Medium order of Caffe Ti-amo Gelato

It came in a flower-shaped bowl similar to the ones that the yogurt place, Red Mango, was giving away sometime last year when you completed their loyalty stamp card.  We were quite disappointed though with the scoop size as it was considerably smaller compared to the bigger and packed scoops of other gelato places.  With its cheaper price in mind though, its quantity matched it perfectly.  We were amused with the miniaturized silver shovels that served as teaspoons that they provided us.  Was it Caffe Ti-amo's sign for us to "dig in?"

The blueberry flavor rushed and flooded my taste buds with its intense flavor that its tangy taste stuck on my throat and I had to sip water immediately afterwards. I got used to it eventually, but it still tasted like blueberry gelato with blueberry concentrate or fermented blueberries in syrup.  My love enjoyed this flavor a lot though.

It also had a crystallized texture similar to frozen sherbet leading me to believe that this batch was already a week or two old already.

(Nerd talk digression: Due to its lower fat content compared to supermarket ice cream, gelato's texture only lasts for several days before it forms fine ice crystals.)

In contrast, the strawberry had a light, creamy flavor.  Although it bore a similar flavor found in supermarket ice cream, it was not as sweet as the ones you find in the supermarket.  In addition, you can feel the "richness" of the ingredients used to make the gelato, a good sign that they did not skimp on the usage of non-fat milk and cream.

The last flavor that we got, dark chocolate, had a deep, chocolate and slightly bitter flavor.  Every spoonful was like biting into a piece of a dark chocolate bar, but in a creamier, more flavorful form comparable to Max Brenner's Dark Chocolate Luxury Truffles.  With actual shavings of dark chocolate playing in your mouth and the creamy gelato hugging your tongue, I believe this flavor could and should become one of the best sellers in the future.

Short Latte and Short Cappuccino - Php 79 each

To cap off our dessert, we had Caffe Ti-amo's signature coffee in latte and cappuccino short cups.  The latte blend was a brimful symphony of milk and coffee, perfect for coffee lovers who do not want their drink to be too bitter.  I didn't even need to add sugar.

However, their cappuccino was disappointing though as though it is required for this drink to have foam, it does not mean that you fill half of the cup with the frothy stuff.  It's like you are getting half-a-cup of latte that was stirred too hard that it foamed up to the brim.  I would not care as much if the drink was half-the-price of the latte as well.

Nevertheless, one will still enjoy the Caffe Ti-amo experience especially with their family or circle of friends.  The store owner surely had this in mind as the tables and chairs can easily be moved and split into singles or grouped together.  Two thumbs up as well when they designed this place as they managed to create a cozy and serene atmosphere to make your stay more intimate, certainly fitting of the store's name.

Don't fret, experience love at first bite in Caffe Ti-amo located at the upper ground floor of SM North Edsa Annex, their first store.  For the southerners, they also have another branch in Greenbelt 5, Makati.

Caffe Ti-Amo
Upper Ground Floor, SM North EDSA Annex, Quezon City
Ground Floor, Greenbelt 5, Makati City
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* Captured with a Nokia N82